A paramount concern in a modern enterprise is the ability to quickly access changing information located on disparate systems and platforms within the enterprise. In order to properly maintain a comprehensive view of the operations and business processes within an organization, however, information on these systems needs to be integrated. For example, as an enterprise grows it requires increased flexibility of data sharing throughout its various automated business systems, such as customer relations management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, inventory control, and other systems. A practice known as enterprise application integration (EAI) enables an organization to share data throughout applications and data sources in an organization. EAI may include database linking, application linking, and data warehousing.
Nevertheless, there have been numerous shortcomings in the integration and data sharing in information technology (IT) environments. Independent configuration for disparate technologies and industry standards often make integration requirements difficult to meet. Integrating an existing inventory control system to a new ERP software package, for instance, may be difficult due to the fact that both systems contain unique features that are customized to fit the requirements of particular areas within an organization. Moreover, many EAI solutions contain a confusing web of point-to-point connections between different applications, procedure calls, file transfers, and e-mail-type messaging to transmit organizational data. These solutions are thus high-risk because of their complexity. Moreover, the data within the individual systems is often locked up, sometimes in proprietary form, difficult to access, and not correlated with other systems and platforms. This makes it difficult to get a consistent, coherent view of all the business data across the enterprise.
Yet another major shortcoming of prior EAI systems is that they are unable to source data from anywhere in the enterprise and to provide automated, in-depth analysis of events in the organization that happen as the events occur. Although some business processes are able to function with slow access to information, the availability of access to real-time information regarding the status and operation of business processes can greatly impact the profitability and efficiency of an organization. What is needed is a comprehensive business platform that enables companies to gather, organize, and deliver in real-time the disparate data driving their businesses